- This topic has 17 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 7 months ago by .
-
Topic
-
Dear Flat Chat
We own a unit in a block of twelve that we rent out and recently, a fellow unit owner complained to our strata manager that our tenants were parking bicycles on common property (chained to a balustrade to the rear of the property, not in a parking spot, close to the clothes line), and thereby breaching by-law #3 “An owner or occupier of a lot must not obstruct lawful use of common property by any person”. The request was for the manager to “address the issue” and so a letter was sent to our tenants threatening a fine and indicating breach of tenancy agreement.
My question is this – what defines obstruction, and is it not reasonable to park bicycles to the rear of the property? Would they rather our tenants drag the bikes up 3 flights of carpeted internal stairs to their unit instead?
Yours,
-
Replies
-
Further to Scotty’s post – it’s all about residents using the Common Property for its intended use, and the foyer was not intended as a storage area!
It seems to me that many residents of Strata Plans are plain lazy and expect that anything outside their front doors is for them to use in any way that they choose, and that anything on that area that’s not theirs is the Owners Corporation’s problem.
Just look at the accumulation of junk mail in and around the letterboxes, and the boxes, mattresses and similar surplus items on the ground around the garbage area!
Anyway back to the pram in the foyer, the attitude of other residents will be “whats good for the goose is good for the gander” and the problem will soon become endemic. So I’d write to your fellow Executive Committee Members (including the goose) and politely suggest that leaving prams and bicycles in the foyer and inside the entrance doors is inconsistent with the intended use of that Common Property, and that Members should both set a good example and resolve to write to all residents to inform them that leaving prams, bicycles, and other private property on Common Property is not permitted.
Thanks Whale and while I support your opinion, I’m not sure that intended use would stand up to much legal scrutiny if we (the OC) were challenged on it.
What I think might help is that bicycles are legally vehicles and so OC rules on vehicles and where they can be parked might apply to them?
But prams are perhaps another matter.